Construction company insolvent, how to proceed further?

Good morning,

I will go through your responses step by step here, first of all thank you for the quick feedback.

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We received the messages through news portals. We eventually reached the heating technician. The heating technician was initially commissioned by the prefabricated house company. However, they did not show up on the construction site for several months. We were always told that the company could no longer reach the heating technician. But that was a lie; after I reached the heating technician, I was informed that all invoices from him were still outstanding and that no one had contacted him regarding the construction project to finalize it.

The construction company is legally formed as GmbH & Co. KG. We received the message from our lawyer, as shortly before the insolvency became known we had engaged a construction law lawyer to finalize the open issues (mainly heating). I suspect that the insolvency advisor will now have contacted our lawyer for this reason.

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Yes, we are unfortunately also aware that this is / was too late. But time was running out for us and financially we were heavily burdened. Therefore, we had no other choice.

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Privately, we brought in other skilled tradespeople to the house to identify potential major defects before the handover; this was not the case. I myself also have no major concerns regarding the blower-door test... but often the devil is in the details.

Regarding the acceptance of the heating system, we have two separate heaters, one for domestic hot water and one for the underfloor heating. The domestic hot water heater was already in operation at move-in, only the underfloor heating was not yet, which we considered not critical at that time (summer).

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Yes, the contract states when which payments are to be made. However, at the handover of the house we wrote down that we will only make the final payment once the house is finalized. How does the handover of warranty to the executing trades look? The construction company only provided the shell; the rest was handled by subcontractors.

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What costs can one roughly expect here? It is a two-family house with approx. 220 m.

A few more brief pieces of information:

- We have also documented the open defects with costs at the handover.
- Do you think there is a possibility to withhold money concerning possible open defects until the blower-door test is completed?

I am grateful for any advice.

There are public announcements accessible to everyone. You don’t need a lawyer for that.
A regular lawyer usually doesn’t have expertise in insolvency law, which is quite specialized. I would seek advice from a specialist there.

Just google "Insolvenzbekanntmachungen," enter the company name or address and search. Then you can view all announcements published by the insolvency court. Who filed for insolvency when, who is the insolvency administrator, who the shareholders are, etc.

Furthermore, you can check all announcements regarding the financial statements, shareholders, etc. in the Bundesanzeiger. Equity, debt ratio, assets of a company. You should do that anyway before placing an order.
You can also view the commercial register for free. So, there is now a lot of information available online. And it doesn’t cost anything.

Be glad you live in your own house. Many have paid in advance, and the house and money are simply gone.

Currently, a small tip from me. Do not make any down payments or advance payments. Always pay only after the service has been provided. Or secure everything with bank guarantees from the supplier. Otherwise, in case of insolvency, everything is gone. You won’t get a single euro back.
Whether it’s the couch at the furniture store, the new kitchen, or something related to house construction.

Companies are currently going insolvent so quickly, it can happen within a few days. So, be careful!

Whereas a blower door test is no reason to refuse acceptance?

According to KfW and the Energy Saving Ordinance, the airtightness determined by means of a blower door test is a owed characteristic; in other words, a prescribed obligation when subsidies are granted. Against this background, acceptance must actually be refused in these cases if no blower door test was conducted.

If you withhold due payments, you will very quickly get mail from the insolvency administrator. Your monetary claims (damages, etc.) go into the insolvency proceedings and are served with the general quota.

If the insolvency proves true, usually the expert (and if applicable, provisional administrator) is appointed as administrator over the assets of the insolvent debtor. From that point on, simply put, "the reversal of normal sense of justice" applies, and subordinate creditors become "victims" just as at the time when insolvency was still called "bankruptcy." Obligations toward the insolvent company retain their full value, but claims against it undergo a value development as from a hundred years ago, where suddenly for a billion Reichsmark you got only half a loaf of bread – as said, simply summarized.

Also follow the source of my quote.

The construction company’s legal form is GmbH & Co. KG.

Then legally there are two companies, namely the KG (whose limited partners "& Co" are liable only with their contributions) and the GmbH as general partner. Each has an independent proceeding (and at least in Ffm they have the absurd humor of assigning different administrators to the KG and the GmbH).

Just google "Insolvenzbekanntmachungen," enter the company name or the address and search. Then you can view all announcements published by the insolvency court. Who filed for insolvency when, who is the insolvency administrator, who are the shareholders, etc.

That means you have to do this here for both companies.

We received the message from our lawyer, as we engaged a construction law attorney shortly before the insolvency became known to close the open points (mainly heating). I suspect the insolvency advisor has therefore now made contact with our lawyer.

The insolvency expert / provisional administrator does not do that at all yet, and even as a final administrator regularly does not initiate contact, meaning your lawyer should already know about the insolvency and have written to him. From my perspective, you now need two lawyers because a specialist lawyer for construction contract law (whom you need as the client) and a specialist lawyer for insolvency law (whom you will need as a creditor of an insolvent KG with a limited partnership as general partner) rarely appear together in one person in the wild.

The blower door test costs around €300 plus [Märchensteuer].

Obviously, the topic creator has not lost any money so far. Although there are still works pending, these were not paid in advance. so he could commission the missing services elsewhere. Nevertheless, it can always happen that the insolvency administrator makes retroactive claims against the client and sues for payments. There are the strangest constellations.